Several times a year I get a CD from a well-known PR consultant. She is a very aggressive and consistent promoter of her business. She has done a good job making herself well-known in her niche. But, when I listen to her CD I often resist her message. Not because of its quality. She has a lot of good ideas and advice. What drives me away is the amount of time it takes to introduce her on each CD program. Her intro seems to go on and on. It talks about every little thing she’s done. By the time I [...]
customer focus
Three Florida legislators have proposed a bill that would require restaurants to list calorie counts on their menus. While I know there are heated arguments on both sides of this issue, I like the idea. One reason I like it is because I’ve recently started counting calories and I am disappointed at being unable to measure the impact of my favorite restaurant meals.But a second reason is because also provides a useful application of how to give customers what they want, plus a little more. Too many businesses forget they need to go beyond the surface in serving their customers. [...]
Last night I had a fun (and lengthy) text conversation with one of my nieces. She’s in college and 5 hours away so we don’t see her as much as we’d like. And being a busy college kid, phone conversations with her are not very common. In fact, our “kids” (12 nieces and nephews) are the primary reason my wife and I both upgraded our cell phones and plans to make it easier (and affordable) to do a lot of texting. Other than live visits, text message conversations are the most common way we can stay in touch with them. [...]
As I work with companies to help them improve their customer service, some things stand out. These are things a lot of organizations don’t do consistently. Yet if they did they’d find the quality of their customer service would improve and their customer loyalty would increase. 1. Know what your customers want. The first thing is to make sure you really know what your customers want. I know this sounds too basic to even talk about. But I’m continually amazed at how many organizations make assumptions about what their customers want without asking them. An example of this is when [...]
In the movie, License to Wed, there’s a funny scene that offers a useful customer service lesson. A reluctant groom stops in a jewelry store to pickup the rings for his wedding. As he looks at his ring he notices something wrong with the inscription. It was supposed to say: “Never to Part” Instead it said something else. The person doing the inscription thought the “P” was an “F”. (I’ll let you figure out what the ring said.) The groom brings this to the store clerk’s attention. Rather than apologizing and working on a solution, the clerk avoids eye contact [...]
A friend of mine helped me today. I had a minor decision to make yet I found myself stuck. So I asked her for help. Rather than give me her opinion, she gave me a process. She said: “Ask yourself which is more important.” She went on to explain how she makes decisions when she’s feeling indecisive. She looks at all the choices on their own and asks herself, which is most important. Looking at each option on its own in detail helps her see what it offers. Then she compares it with the others to see which one aligns [...]
Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service: We choose our attitudes and our actions And here are some additional thoughts on this topic… In just about every customer service training session I do, I hear someone say this (or something like this): “It’s hard to be cheerful all the time because some customers make me so angry.” People who say this are often guilty of treating customers (and others) poorly because they feel bad. Their emotional state is negative and it comes out in everything they do. But when working with customers we shouldn’t act out how we feel, [...]
Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service: Only ask for what you need And here are some additional thoughts on this topic… A big complaint customers often have is when companies waste their time asking for irrelevant and unneeded information. Here’s a good example of this. This company offers a handy resource (for no charge) to their readers. Then they ask for a lot of information that is not necessary at this stage of their sales cycle. (It might be nice to have this information but it is not necessary.) By doing this they put an obstacle between their [...]
Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service: Don’t leave your customers wondering And here are some additional thoughts on this topic… When you leave your customers with unanswered questions, you are not doing your job. You are not helping them get what they came for. When you leave customers wondering, you substantially increase the chances they will go to your competition. And they’ll probably tell stories about you (not good stories either). The good news is, it’s easy to prevent this.
They’ll never get it their way if we always do it our way. -Mike Lane Author of: The Wisdom of Yawdy Rum
